When you see SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS today, you are
not
just looking at the first full-length color animated feature, you are looking
at the beginnings of an empire. Walt Disney had been working
toward a full-length cartoon for some time, despite the fact that
virtually nobody else had done it and many people in the industry and
out of it called the project "Disney's Folly", guaranteed to
be a
failure. They soon had to eat their words, as SNOW WHITE was not only
tops at the box office in 1937 but was the highest grossing film ever
until GONE WITH
THE WIND.

You might think that
being the first animated feature, SNOW WHITE may be a little creaky
and unsure of itself. Instead, SNOW WHITE is among
the most confident of movies. Just imagine you were Disney
embarking on such an unheard-of project back in 1937. Would
you
have conceived of a movie where you had to animate seven dwarfs, each
with their own personality, not to mention dozens of animals, each with
their own way of moving? It boggles the mind to think of
having
to draw each one of those characters, again and again, frame by frame,
over the entire length of a feature film. Yet Disney knew his
animators could do it, and
they did it beautifully, in a way that dazzled audiences of the day and
can
still dazzle the less-jaded of us today.

The one thing I love about the early Disney movies is they
were not afraid to make you cry. SNOW WHITE, DUMBO, BAMBI...
all have their moments when even the most stout-hearted of people may
wish to reach for a box of tissues. I don't want to spoil
things
for those of you who have never seen SNOW WHITE, so all I will say is
that the people at Walt Disney were brilliant. They introduce
the seven dwarfs, give them enough amusing business to ensure
that you will love at least one or two if not all of them, and
then pull the rug out from under you and make you believe that
these are not just cartoon characters but real people, even if they
aren't. So when they cry over a tragedy, you will tear up
along
with them.

As with so many Disney
features based on fairy tales that were originally only a few hundred
words long, the story is uncomplicated, leaving plenty of room for
character business,
gags and songs. Each dwarf has his own
character traits,
based on
his
names: Doc, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, Grumpy and Dopey,
with the most developed being the last
two.
Grumpy is the one dwarf who is adamantly against Snow White
staying at their cottage (see the quote below this review),
and won't even wash up for supper when she
asks him to. Yet, over the course of the film, Snow White
wins
him over. Although he is disgusted by his fellow dwarfs and
their incessant fawning over Snow White, he does make sure he gets his
kiss on the head goodbye before he goes to work, and then
beams with happiness when he thinks he
is out of her sight. And it is Grumpy who is most vocal about
saving
Snow White when they discover that the Evil Queen is at their cottage,
and the first to commandeer a deer to rush to her rescue.

Dopey is one of the
great Disney characters, in personality and design, a silent clown with
more than a
little bit of Harpo Marx in him. Stan Laurel too, as is
evident
with his hitch step he uses to catch up to his fellow dwarfs, and his
walking into the wall behind the door instead of walking through it,
two trademark Laurel gags. Dopey ranks with Dumbo and Bambi
as the
character children can most identify with in the early Disney films.

The film contains at least three
songs
which are still firmly stuck in the collective mind of
the public today. There are the jaunty whistling tunes "Whistle While
You Work" and "Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho", as well as the first great Disney ballad
"Someday My Prince Will Come". The other songs are catchy but not quite
as
memorable, but they help serve as the basis for some
extended gag
sequences, such as when the seven dwarfs wash their hands and faces for
the first time in ages.

When I first saw SNOW
WHITE in a little movie theater in Wildwood, New Jersey, I
loved everything about it except Snow White's voice. It
struck me
as too Betty Boopish, really aging the film. When I saw it again years
later (a day before writing this review, to be accurate), I
still
wasn't crazy about the voice of Adrianna Caselotti, but it in no way
hindered my enjoyment of the film. SNOW WHITE has so much
going
on, all of it good, my reservations about the lead
character's voice dissolved
in
about five minutes. She may not be my favorite Disney
heroine, but the dwarfs love her, and that's good enough for me.

The art of animation
may have evolved over the
decades, but revisit SNOW WHITE and you will find that charm, hard work
and
artistry never get old, and SNOW WHITE can still hold its
own with any full length cartoon from any era. Kids
- and
adults - who grew up with animated films heavily dependent on dialogue
and star voices may find it a bit simplistic, but I suggest you just
sit back, relax and let SNOW WHITE happen. It
was the
film that established Disney's reputation as a filmmaker, opened
Hollywood's eyes to the endless possibilities animation held
for
full
length movies (The Fleischer Brothers quickly put GULLIVER'S TRAVELS
into production), and was the first step in changing Walt
Disney
from a guy who made beautiful little cartoons to a legend who was king
of a
media empire of fantasy and fun. And it was all done by hand,
frame by frame. ½ - JB

"She's a female, and all
females is poison! They're full of wicked wiles!"
"What are wicked wiles?"
"I don't know --- but I'm agin 'em!"

THANK YOU,
DWARFS, WE'VE GOT OUR SEVEN, THE REST OF YOU CAN GO HOME NOW

Some actual rejected dwarf
names: Weepy, Hungry, Thrifty, Awful, Gabby, Sappy, Flabby, Snappy,
Puffy, Chesty. Coincidentally, Gabby was used by the
Fleischer
Brothers for one of the main characters in GULLIVER'S TRAVELS.

NOT SO
FAST THERE, WALT!

The first actual animated
feature film was 1917's El
Apóstol
by Argentina's Quirino Cristiani. There were others, too,
from
around the world, but SNOW WHITE was the first color and sound feature
from Hollywood and, due to its overwhelming success, is usually
considered to be "the first" as we know animated features today.
Akin to The
Jazz Singer being the first sound film even
though it
wasn't.

THE
(SNOW) WHITE ALBUM

In his final interview, for Playboy in
1980, John Lennon explained that the early Beatles' hit "Do You Want to
Know a Secret?" was inspired by the song "I'm Wishing" from Snow White, which
begins "Want to know a secret? Promise not to tell?", lyrics which were
borrowed by Lennon for the Beatles tune.

HOW TO
SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING

Comedian and character actor Billy Gilbert, most famous for his work at
the Hal Roach Studios, heard that one of the dwarfs was going to be
named Sneezy. He called Walt Disney up and did his famous
"sneezing routine" and won the job immediately. He reprised
this
routine a decade later for Disney as Willie the Giant in FUN AND FANCY FREE.

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